NEW ORLEANS — A marsh fire burned in Bayou Sauvage Monday, but was not unexpected due to the drought experienced throughout the state.
The US Drought Monitor reports that nearly all over central and southern Louisiana are under some type of drought.
In western Louisiana, the drought is currently considered severe. In severe drought, creeks and bayou water levels are low and trees are stressed.
All of our WWLTV viewing area is dealing with, at a minimum, abnormal dryness. The southernmost parts of Orleans and Jefferson Parish are experiencing moderate drought.
Moderate drought is really nothing to worry about, but it does increase fire risk and it’s not typical for our area.
Looking at US Drought Monitor maps from Louisiana this same week last year, the very southernmost parts of the state were abnormally dry, but were not in a drought. Looking at a map from the same week in 2021, there was no dryness statewide.
So what’s the issue this year?
For that answer, we turned to data from our local weather experts. In July, our area saw about three-inches less rainfall than normal. For the whole year of 2023, we’re almost 20 inches below our normal amount of rainfall.
The bittersweet news there is that we can make up for that missed rainfall, but it could take some tropical storm activity to do it.